Davis, Anson, House

John Kerr, one of the original proprietors of Columbus, was born in county Tyrone, Ireland, about the year 1778. He enjoyed the advantages of a good education in his native county, including attendance at the Dublin Laiiversity. He came to the United States in 18 10 and settled that year in Franklin county, Ohio. He was a member of the first board of councilmen elected in 1816 for the borough of Columbus. From the information obtainable at this time concerning his intelligence and business qualifications it would seem that his attainments in this respect compared favorably with those of any of his coteinporaries. He, like many others of that early period, seemed to look to an appreciation in the price of real estate as the readiest and surest means of acquiring a fortune. As a speculator or dealer in land his investments and ventures were probably more numerous and extensive than those of almost any other individual in the county. It is believed by some who are yet living, and whose advanced age enable them to remember him with tolerable distinctness, that he was at one time the largest land-owner in the city of Columbus. But v/hether this be true or not, or to what extent this impression may be founded upon fact, it is certain that he was an energetic, active business man, and, like a number of his associates of the same period, was ever willing and ready to unite his effort with others in any enterprise or industry which foreshadowed benefit or advantage to the community, and responded with promptness and alacrity to any movement compassing this object. Mr. Kerr always entertained a high and sanguine faith in the future of Columbus, and in his expressions of interest and attachment to its material welfare was ecjually ardent. His sincerity in respect of the latter profession was conclusively demonstrated by his joint donation with Lyne Starling of the beautiful square of ground in Columbus on which the state-house stands. He died in the year 1823 and was buried in what is known as the old north graveyard, but as the result of neglect or from other cause the headstone placed over his grave has been removed or was destroyed, so that the exact spot of his last resting place cannot now be determined with any degree of certainty.

Passage source: A Centennial Biographical History of the City of Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio .., published 1901.

His life record began in' Francistown, New Hampshire, on the nth of May, 1 82 1, his parents being Osgood and Hannah (Fuller) Hutchinson, the latter a daughter of the Rev. Andrew Fuller, one of the early graduates of Harvard University. The boyhood of our subject was passed in his native town, where he acquired an academic education. He was a close and earnest student, and after completing his own course successfully engaged in teaching for two terms in the public schools. Wishing, however, to devote his life to a higher and holier calling, he prepared for the ministry, entering the theological school at Meadville, Pennsylvania, in 1847. He there pursued the regular course and was graduated in June, 1850. Subsequently he took a post-graduate course in Oberlin College, and in 1852 he opened a preparatory school on South High street, in Columbus, where he was engaged in teaching for fifty terms. During a part of that time he was also an instructor in the schools of Dublin. 'During his pedagogic career he also engaged in preaching the gospel, beginning his work in the ministry at the time when he entered Oberlin College for post-graduate work. For a half century he devoted his time partly to the work of the ministry, being ordained about 1853 as a member of the Christian church, belonging to the Ohio Central Christian Conference, in which all of his ministerial work has been performed, except for a period of eight years spent in Kittery, Maine, where he preached the gospel, carrying the glad tidings of great joy to many listeners.

Passage source: A Centennial Biographical History of the City of Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio .., published 1901.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

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